Inside a Faculty Development Program: What Two Days of Robotics Training Actually Covers

The Reputation Problem With FDPs

Faculty development programs have earned a bad reputation, and mostly a fair one — a lecture, a slide deck, a certificate at the end, and very little that survives past the workshop. We built our FDP format specifically to not be that, and it's changed a fair amount since the first one we ran.

What We Actually Run

Every session is hands-on before it's theoretical. Faculty build a working circuit or a small automation before we explain the underlying concept in depth — because a teacher who has already made something work has better questions than a teacher who's just been told how it works.

We frame automation and robotics fundamentals around what students will actually ask in week one of a course, not around a generic syllabus. "Why did the sensor read wrong in a bright room" gets more airtime than a slide on sensor specifications.

A Rough Day-by-Day

The exact structure shifts depending on the department and what equipment is already on campus, but a typical two-day program looks roughly like this:

• Day one, morning: hands-on build session — faculty assemble and run a basic robotics/automation unit themselves, mistakes included.
• Day one, afternoon: the concepts behind what they just built, tied directly back to the build, not taught in the abstract.
• Day two, morning: a harder build with common failure points deliberately left in, so faculty troubleshoot the same issues students will hit later.
• Day two, afternoon: a take-home structure — a simple lesson plan and troubleshooting reference faculty can actually use in their next class, not just a certificate.

What Changed Between Our First FDP and Now

The earliest version of this program was closer to the format we were trying to avoid — too much talking, not enough building. The clearest signal that it wasn't working was faculty asking "so what do we actually do with this on Monday?" at the end of day two. That question is why the take-home session exists now, and why every session since has started with hands first, theory second.

We've since run this format for engineering departments including at TKM Institute of Technology and LBS Institute of Technology, adjusting the build exercises each time based on what equipment and lab space was already available on campus.

If your department is considering an FDP, we'd rather scope it around your actual lab setup than hand you a fixed package — get in touch and we can talk through what would fit.